But first, a walk was due—as much to explore the village as to make space for dinner. The warren of lanes and by-lanes are completely disorienting. This village looks unlike any other in the country. Massive Mithun faces carved into the walls of the wooden houses, the brightly patterned shawls, the wild and rugged country surrounding the cluster of houses, the whirls of paddy fields splashing down the mountainsides, and colourfully-dressed women laden with necklaces. It seemed, to my book-enriched imagination, a surreal scene straight out of some Andean civilisation. Ridge after ridge receding into the mist, valley after plunging valley, interrupted with classical antiquity by a sprinkling of houses in the distance. A vulture circled overhead for added effect.
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By four in the afternoon, the sky was already darkening. The next day’s dinner barked somewhere in the distance. An untimely cock-a-doodle stopped midway. I had chicken for dinner and lots of rice beer that was served in a bottomless bamboo stalk. And the banter began. Unlike the state museum in Kohima, which seemed to try and downplay the tradition of headhunting (which offically ended in 1963), the elderly villagers revelled in the memories of the violent past when they diced the heads of the members of other tribes and the rapidly advancing Japanese soldiers. It was the Japanese soldiers’ fault, they said, echoing the sentiments expressed by the plaque at the Kohima war cemetery. “They would harass us, steal our pigs, hunt in our forests.”

So the Nagas hunted them. And this particular tale, told with the utmost seriousness, included apart from the final decapitation, a grisly account of tracking the quarry and plunging spears “deep into their hearts”. And as if the dancing devils in the details were not enough, he added (right before wishing me good night and sweet dreams) that with my shoulder-length, curly locks, I would have made an especially memorable trophy. He was only joking, but after the surfeit of war dances at the Hornbill Festival and vivid display of the grim harvest of skulls at the museum, I wondered how I would sleep. Fortunately, I was too tired to bother and fell into a fitful slumber.

I woke up groggy as a lance of sunlight struck my face. It was 5am. The east, I realised, was not a good place to sleep late. Gathering my belongings, I departed just as the villagers headed out to the fields and the women got down to cleaning the houses. By noon, I was at Khonoma, another Angami village that offers a rich insight into the history of this land. Not much seems to have changed here—if you discount the odd mortar-and-brick house and the electric poles that march through the village.

The centre of the hamlet is still dominated by the tehuba, a platform made of stone, where the village council metes out justice. Emerging as a tourist destination, Khonoma is famous for having fiercely resisted the advancing British troops (legend has it that one of the heads in the Kohima state museum once belonged to a British officer) and for being the birthplace of the father of Naga nationalism, A.Z. Phizo. An epitaph describes how a handful of villagers kept the advancing army at bay and how they laid down their lives to protect their independence.

Today, however, things are very different. A British couple was being escorted to the jungles by a Naga guide and they were putting up at a house remodelled as a homestay, just a short jump from where the epitaph rises.

The hosts, too, were intent on having me sample the riches that lay in the forest surrounding the village, oblivious to the fact that I was not half as nimble as they were on trails made by centuries of shuffling feet. When we finally finished our ‘leisurely’ walk, I was too exhausted even to open the door of the vehicle I was to travel in and opted instead to check into another homestay. My embarrassed host, trying to lighten the atmosphere, told me that change was gradually seeping into their lives. “There will soon be a proper road that tourists use,” he told me. “Someday, we may even have a road wide enough for cars.”

I hoped that would not be the case, for Nagaland, despite that day’s strenuous walk, was the most visually seductive place I have seen. But tradition, I happily realised, would endure for a long time to come. Dinner that night was steamed hornets, snail stew, sticky rice and the bug that helped strengthen my heart. l

THE INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
Dimapur has direct flights from Guwahati and Kolkata. It is also connected by train to Delhi (Brahmaputra Mail or Dibrugarh Rajdhani) and Kolkata (Kamrup Express). Kohima is a pleasant 8-9 hour drive from Dimapur.

WHERE TO STAY
There are several hotels and paying guest facilities in Kohima. Among them, the better ones are Hotel Japfu (standard single and double rooms for Rs 900 and 1,200, respectively, deluxe rooms for Rs 1,400/single and Rs 1,600/double; 0370-2240211) and West View (singles for Rs 400, doubles for Rs 800; 2270496/845).